necklace: What is in a word

A ’necklace’ can be many things: a souvenir; a token; a decoration; an adornment; and more still. But importantly it is often a ‘jewel’ ready (in waiting?) to be invested with cultural meanings, a cultural function and perhaps cultural or personal significance – a carrier of ideas, sentiments etc and especially so when it is a gift.

A ‘jewel’ is recognised as something precious, a gem, a treasure and a valued object that carries a narrative. In the end, it is the ideas and imaginings that are invested in jewels that are more precious than the 'stuff' of which it is made and its intrinsic 'values'.

It is hard to imagine a ‘jewel’ without a story or narrative – meanings, functions, significance. Indeed it is hard to imagine that a jewel without a story as being any kind of jewel at all. Undeniably, necklaces invested with meanings immediately become jewels. For example, a crown of either ephemeral flowers, or the incorruptible preciousness of gold, without a realm over which to reign is no crown at all. Likewise a wedding ring would not in fact be one unless there were two people bound in 'marriage' by it. They would be but mere baubles.

Essentially, “necklace” is a Eurocentric (global?) idea, and it does not fit at all well within either Polynesian or Aboriginal naming systems, or the belief systems, that are defined within, and by, ‘language’. A necklace is a kind of generic term that best fits the circumstances of the industrial era. It is a catch all, somewhat lowest common denominator, term that comes to a wearer, typically via mass production, ready to be invested with meaning – typical private and intimate meanings and symbolisms.

Furthermore, in a postcolonial cum ‘global’ paradigm, albeit often unacknowledged, various kinds of ‘necklaces’ – rosaries, chains of office etc. – carry hidden subtexts that typically emerge from the ether to haunt us in various ways. Interestingly, they are rarely if ever referred to as "necklaces."

It is now known that that Hawaii's Queen Liliuokalani, the last of Hawaii's monarchs, had a number of Tasmanian kelp shell necklaces that seem to have come to her via a retail sale in Honolulu. They are now in the collection of the Bishops Museum in Honolulu.

Queen Liliuokalini lived until 1917, and thus it’s most likely that she would have either bought them at a store, or perhaps someone might have given them to her, but probably (again) just by having purchased them commercially. By the time she was an adult, Hawaii had a completely westernized economy, particularly in Honolulu – DeSoto Brown, Bishop's Museum Oct 2009 .

The circumstances seem to be there for these 'shell necklaces' originating in Tasmania and them finding their way to Honolulu via the M M Martin enterprise – Hobart & Honolulu.

Attempts have been made to homoginise language and use more general, inclusive and global terms, such as neckpiece, body adornment etc etc. Ultimately such words fail in their hollowness. They carry little if any cultural cargo that is of much use in projecting shaded meanings with depth, subtleness, substance, dimension, whatever, found in material cultural production.

When lei and maireeners are claimed as “necklaces” it seems that it is not only unhelpful in understanding the cultural context of the object in hand but also potentially derisive. Undeniably, there is a good case to argue that it is an act of cultural colonisation – albeit most times unconsciously so. Perhaps it goes further, possibly it is an act of cultural homogenisation that is more to do with "blanding’ than it might have anything to do with blending" – Rod Ewins paraphrased ... from a presentation on Fijian Art to the Oceanic Art Society, Sydney, March 17, 1999.

Ray Norman 2009 - 1995